Weapons & Equip Why Drills are obsolete, and how to fix them.

L0ST5ILVER

Official Terrarian
hello everyone :)
Let's not beat around the bush.
Drills, are for the most part, completely redundant and obsolete.

Here is why:

  • Drills:
Pros: Faster base speed than pickaxes​
Cons: Shorter range than pickaxes​

  • Pickaxes:
Pros: Larger range than drills
Cons: Slower base speed than drills​

Sounds fair and reasonably balanced, correct? Well you'd be right, if these were the only differences between drills and pickaxes.
However there is one other subtle difference that may take more time to notice.
Drills... Are completely and utterly unaffected by Any Mining buff (eg: Mining potion, Ancient Chisel, Mining armour etc.).
This means, that while Pickaxes are slower by default, when you combine a Mining Potion, with an Ancient Chisel and full mining armour (for an 80% mining increase), Drills are completely unchanged by this, while pickaxes become tectonic plate tearing terrain murdering machines of doom and destruction.

This insane difference is both none sensical, and completely contradicts the purpose of Drills, which are meant to be faster but with less range.
All of that is out of the window, Drills are objectively worse than pickaxes. Period. Back in the day this was at least debatable, but laughably, ironically, the updates that were meant to make the drills unique and faster, ended up making them the biggest waste of 15/18 hardmode bars of your Terraria Career.

So in truth, Pickaxe pros: Good Range and insane speed.
Drills... Less range and slower. That's the bottom line.

Let me repeat myself, Drills are supposed to be faster, yet are unaffected by mining buffs while pickaxes aren't, making drills utter redundant and pointless over pickaxes.
This means a Cobalt Pickaxe is faster than a Titanium drill, possibly, even the Drax. Which is absurd.

Yes, you may say "Yeah but that requires potions and sacrificing armour and an accessory slot", but that's not the point, that point is moot, because everybody uses Mining potions, and I always keep an ancient chisel on me for mining, and just merely those two are enough to massively outspeed the drills.

  • How To Fix the Problem: Make drills affected by mining buffs... It's literally that simple. I see no reason other than "a potion can't make a machine go faster" (which is by the way, forgive me, total wyvern dung) to justify such a silly limitation. As I've said 3 times already, it marks all drills are inferior to pickaxes in every. single. way.

I understand that 1.4.1.1 is out, and we're not going to see anymore updates, however, this is not a usual suggestion, this is a protest. After years of debating whether pickaxes or drills are better, this piece of unforgiveable injustice has hit home hard. I cannot understand what possible Logic Relogic were using when deciding "Hey, let's make drills totally useless , for realsies this time" (Because they were always slightly slower than pickaxes anyway).

I can only beg and prey that Relogic see this, and see sense in their unjust decision to banish Drills to the underworld forever.

#JusticeForDrills


Kind regards, :)
-L0ST
 
Not just that though, IMO, but drills are also obstructing the view of what you're trying to mine, aren't they? If you just wanna dig a tunnel, that's not a big problem, but they're kind of annoying for more precise mining or terraforming...

Though it was long ago I last crafted a drill instead of a pickaxe, so I'm not 100% sure, but I think they were in the way of seeing what are you mining...
 
The weird part is that the Gravedigger's Shovel is useful due to it's ability for a pretty long time, yet that same behavior wasn't used on drills even through 3x3 mining in other contexts would be great.
 
The weird part is that the Gravedigger's Shovel is useful due to it's ability for a pretty long time, yet that same behavior wasn't used on drills even through 3x3 mining in other contexts would be great.
that's actually true, and, though it would change them a lot, it actually would be quite fitting for drills, I think.
 
I wouldn't mind this, but I'm still going to use drills even if they aren't buffed so I don't have to go out of my way for mining speed bonuses.
 
I believe the reason that the Drills weren't affected by the mining speed buffs wasn't just a non-sensical decision not to do so, but a code limitation of some sort (though I don't know the details of why).

This same limitation is also why in 1.2, Red pretty much abandoned the drills as an idea and started moving back in the direction of Pickaxes, aside from a few stray drills like Chlorophyte being added. Because they didn't work, and I assume they weren't super easy to "fix".

Its also why we did the rework to them in 1.4 to make them faster at base performance (but with shorter range), to give them at least a viable niche, rather than being permanently a downgrade. A character who ISN'T using any mining boosts will have better performance with a drill, while people with dedicated mining gear will find pickaxes perform better.
 
I believe the reason that the Drills weren't affected by the mining speed buffs wasn't just a non-sensical decision not to do so, but a code limitation of some sort (though I don't know the details of why).

This same limitation is also why in 1.2, Red pretty much abandoned the drills as an idea and started moving back in the direction of Pickaxes, aside from a few stray drills like Chlorophyte being added. Because they didn't work, and I assume they weren't super easy to "fix".

Its also why we did the rework to them in 1.4 to make them faster at base performance (but with shorter range), to give them at least a viable niche, rather than being permanently a downgrade. A character who ISN'T using any mining boosts will have better performance with a drill, while people with dedicated mining gear will find pickaxes perform better.
That makes sense. Effectively you're creating a projectile instead of a tool like a pickaxe, as proven that they despawn after 1 minute of continous use.
 
Yeah, I assume if it was as simple a fix as just "make them work with modifiers", we would have done it 8 years ago.
 
Mining Potion, Cake, Food Buff, easy to get. No mining armor or chisel needed.

Hey I just got an idea from reading the posts, why not make it a 1x3 (one deep 3 large) dig size. Keep the speed and add a mining potion but for drills with a hardmode recipe, just to be sure.
 
I believe the reason that the Drills weren't affected by the mining speed buffs wasn't just a non-sensical decision not to do so, but a code limitation of some sort (though I don't know the details of why).

This same limitation is also why in 1.2, Red pretty much abandoned the drills as an idea and started moving back in the direction of Pickaxes, aside from a few stray drills like Chlorophyte being added. Because they didn't work, and I assume they weren't super easy to "fix".

Its also why we did the rework to them in 1.4 to make them faster at base performance (but with shorter range), to give them at least a viable niche, rather than being permanently a downgrade. A character who ISN'T using any mining boosts will have better performance with a drill, while people with dedicated mining gear will find pickaxes perform better.
If it's a coding limitation then this is perfectly reasonable.

Mining Potion, Cake, Food Buff, easy to get. No mining armor or chisel needed.

Hey I just got an idea from reading the posts, why not make it a 1x3 (one deep 3 large) dig size. Keep the speed and add a mining potion but for drills with a hardmode recipe, just to be sure.
People have suggested drills to be able to dig multiple blocks at once before, but Relogic didn't decide to add it.

I've never used mining potions or the chisel, it's just too much effort for little reward.
Too much effort to equip an accessory and use a potion? I would bet my left pinky toe that most people use mining potions when mining, especially for hardmode ores.
Also how is turning a Cobalt pickaxe into a Picksaw "little reward".
 
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